After saying that
the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, John Lennon was shot 6
times-Fiction!

After saying that
only God could remove him from office a Brazilian president elect died
before his inauguration- Unproven!

Brazilian singer
Cazuza died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER after blowing cigarette
smoke at God -Fiction!

Actress Marilyn
Monroe told Billy Graham that she did not need Jesus and died shortly
afterwards- Fiction!

The man who built
the Titanic said "Not even God can sink it!" - Unproven!

Summary of the eRumor: A forwarded email with examples of untimely
deaths of people who mocked God. The email quotes Galatians 6:7 and
lists a group of people who all mocked God and died. The first
example is of former Beatle John Lennon who said that the Beatles were
more popular than Jesus. Also included in the list are
Marilyn Monroe, a rock singer who sang that he was on a "Highway to
Hell", a Brazilian president elect, a Brazilian singer
and the man who built the RMS Titanic.

The Truth: This eRumor suggests that God wiped out
certain people for statements they made about him. Whether that is true
is known only to God, but we can explore whether they really made the
statements attributed to them.

John Lennon
(1940-1980) did say in 1966, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and
shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I will be proved
right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go
first - rock n' roll or Christianity." Fourteen years later,
Lennon was shot dead by Mark David Chapman in New York City on December
8, 1980.

The American teen magazine "Datebook"
reprinted the "We're more popular than Jesus" interview which caused a
stir of protests and a rash of Beatle record and memorabilia burnings on
the streets in the US. Beatles manager, Brian Epstein released a
statement saying that the words of John Lennon had been taken out of
context and while in Chicago Lennon and the Beatles called a press
conference and apologized to the world for his comment.

The band heard of threats from the Ku
Klux Klan, predictions that they would all die in a plane crash or a
hurricane. This was about 2 years after the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy and the band made a decision to stop touring
and focus their attention to work in the recording studio.

YouTube Video of the
John Lennon Comment about Jesus

John Lennon was a Rock and Roll
musician who started the popular British Invasion Band called the the
Beatles in the 1960's. Lennon and co-writer Paul
McCartney wrote hundreds of songs together along with George Harrison
and Ringo Star and together they remained at the top of the charts for
nearly a decade.

Lennon was notorious for his little
quips and often answered reporter's questions off answers
the top of his head. One of the earliest remarks
like these was when asked how the Beatles found America, Lennon
responded, "Turn left at Greenland."

The Fab Four might have began in
England but they gained European popularity in the rock and roll school
of hard knocks working the taverns of Hamburg Germany. The
band returned to England where they were discovered playing at a
nightclub by Brian Epstein who landed them a record deal and there first
hits "Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do" skyrocketed them to fame.
Their 1963 US tour the U.S. included a Sunday Night live performance on
the Ed Sullivan Show which introduced the for mop tops to the nearly
every American family. The band had a long run on the hit parade
and in 1969 broke up and each Beatle pursued their individual solo
careers. In the Beatles Anthology documentary , George
Harrison said, "They gave their money and they gave their screams, but
the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems. Which is, you
know, much more difficult thing to give."

In his book, "Skywriting By Word of
Mouth", Lennon wrote that he and the group had grown weary of touring
and thanked Jesus for the comment that drove the band from the road and
into
the studio where they recorded their most creative projects.

After the breakup of
the band, John Lennon wrote a couple of songs about God. In his first solo album Lennon wrote, "God
is a concept, by which we can measure, our pain." This
was a song where John list Beatles, Bible, Jesus, Zimmerman (Bob Dylan),
kings, yoga, Kennedy, and mantra as things that he does not believe in
and says he just believes in himself and his wife Yoko.

Seven years before his
death, in 1973, Lennon's biggest solo hit entitled "Imagine" included the
lyrics, Imagine there's no Heaven, it's easy if you try. No Hell
below us, above us only sky." Many interpreted the song to be
a message
against religion but this was John Lennon vision of the world living in
peace and not fighting over spiritual ideals or materialism.

The question is, why
would God wait so long to smite John Lennon?

Tancredo Neves
(1910-1985) He was elected president of Brazil in January 1985. Neves underwent surgery before his inauguration and was unable to take
office. Vice president elect José Sarney Costa temporarily assumed
the presidency. Neves never recovered and died from complications
following his surgery. We have not found any evidence that
he made the statement about God.

Cazuza
(4 April 1958 – 7 July 1990) was a Brazilian composer, singer and
poet who was noted for mixing the Bosse Nova with British and American
Popular music styles. According to his obituary in the
July 8, 1990 New York Times, the openly bisexual Cazuza died of aids at
the age of 32, not lung cancer. We have not found any
evidence that he mocked God. Click
for obit.

Marilyn Monroe
(1926 - 1962) was married at the age to 21 to her first husband, Jimmy
Dougherty. According to the bio on Monroe's official web
site, Dougherty, said of his wife, "She was a sweet, generous and
religious girl." Monroe was reared as a foster child in a
devoutly Christian family in Hawthorne, California but there is not much
information about what her spiritual beliefs were before she died. Monroe's death was ruled to be "acute barbiturate
poisoning" by Los Angeles County Coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. A
spokesperson for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association told TruthOrFiction.com
that there was no discussion between Marilyn Monroe and Billy Graham.

Bonn Scott (July
9th, 1946 - February 19, 1980) was the co-writer of
the ACDC 1979 popular song "Highway to Hell" and at the age of 33 was
pronounced dead on arrival at Kings College in London, England. The
cause of death was asphyxiation as a result of vomiting after passing
out after a night of heavy alcohol consumption. The song Highway
to Hell lyrics referred to the self destructive lifestyle of the rock
and roll artist with the lyrics: "Hey Satan, payin' my dues.
Playing in a rocking band. Hey Momma, look at me I'm on my way to
the promised land. I'm on the highway to hell."

The RMS Titanic
was built in 1911 for the White Star Line at the the Harland and Wolff
shipyard in Belfast in the United Kingdom. According to the
archives.gov web site an unknown White Star Line employee at the time of
Titanic's launch on May 31, 1911 said, "Not even God himself could sink
this ship." It is not known who this person was or if in fact he
built the Titanic.

TruthorFiction.com is
still investigating the other stories in this eRumor.

The Bible quotation in
the eRumor taken from Galatians 6:7 but was used out context to the text surrounding
it. The Apostle Paul's letter to the Galatians is about
Grace, Christian living and the sixth chapter warns against being
condescending and instructs on helping others who fall into sin.

updated 07/02/09

A real example of the eRumor as it has
appeared on the Internet:

DID YOU KNOW THESE FACTS? I SURE DIDN'T
TILL NOW

Death is certain but the Bible speaks about untimely
death!

Make a personal reflection about this.....

Very interesting, read until the end.....

It is written in the Bible (Galatians 6:7):

'Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a
man sow, that shall he also reap.

Here are some men and women who mocked God :

John Lennon (Singer):

Some years before, during his interview with an
American Magazine, he said:

'Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not
have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects
were too simple, today we are more famous than Him' (1966).

Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous
than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.

Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil ):

During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got
500,000 votes from his party, not even God would remove him from
Presidency.

Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before
being made President, then he died.

Cazuza (Bi-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and
poet):

During A show in Canecio ( Rio de Janeiro ), While smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke
into the air and said:'God, that's for you.'

He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible
manner.

The man who built the Titanic

After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked
him how safe the Titanic would be. With an ironic tone he said:

'Not even God can sink it' The result: I think you all know what happened to the
Titanic

Marilyn Monroe (Actress)

She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation
of a show. He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to
her. After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said:
'I don't need your Jesus'. A week later, she was found dead in her apartment

Bon Scott (Singer)

The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang: 'Don't stop me; I'm going down all the way, down the
highway to hell'. On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found
dead, he had been choked by his own vomit.

Campinas (IN 2005)

In Campinas , Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went
to pick up a friend..... The mother accompanied her to the car and was so
worried about the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the
daughter holding her hand, who was already seated in the car:

'My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You.'
She responded: 'Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause Inside
Here.....It's Already Full '

Hours later, news came by that they had been involved
in a fatal accident, everyone had died, the car could not be recognized
what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact.
The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact.
To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken

Christine Hewitt (Jamaican Journalist and entertainer)
said the Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written.

In June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in
her motor vehicle. Many more important people have forgotten that there
is no other name that was given so much authority as the name of Jesus.

Many have died, but only Jesus died and rose again,
and he is still alive.

'Jesus'

PS: If it was a joke, you would have sent it to
everyone. So are you going to have courage to send this?.

I have done my part, Jesus said 'If you are
embarrassed about me, I will also be embarrassed about you before my
father.'

You are my 8 in 8 seconds. I am not breaking this. No
way!

I'M TOLD THIS WORKS!!!!! Bishop T.D. Jakes '8 Second
Prayer.' Just repeat this prayer and see how God moves!!

'Lord, I love you and I need you, come into my heart,
and bless me, my family, my home, and my friends, in Jesus' name. Amen.'

Pass this message to 8 people {EXCEPT YOU AND ME}..You
will receive a miracle tomorrow. I Hope that you don't ignore and let
God bless you.